Light as a Feather, Silent as the Grave

Alt. Epilogue - Part 1

Sunlight filtered through the ceiling of the basement. After an assessment of the amount of dust that had piled high in the basement and a timid investigation of the staircase leading back up to the first floor, Henry had deduced that the high winds must have caused a partial collapse of the floors of the rectory that sat above ground. As a group we had decided, primarily at Father Fahey's insistence, that although it was morbid to hang out with a corpse until help arrived, we'd be wise to sit tight and wait for the fire department rather than taking the risk that the entire structure might cave in on us. So there we sat for hours in the basement of the rectory at St. Monica's at card tables usually used for Sunday night bingo games, surrounded by old leaflets intended for recycling.

Trey and I had sat together throughout the afternoon in the dark basement with our hands locked together, both envisioning identical scenarios of what would happen when the fire department finally dug through the first and second levelled floors of the structure and found us down there with the body of a man who'd been quite obviously murdered. It was an easy assumption that we'd be separated immediately and probably hauled off to prison—adult prison. By that point, we'd surely exhausted Judge Roberts' patience with our juvenile antics, and being accused of shooting a prominent businessman was a heck of a lot more serious than leading cops on a cross-county joyride. We didn't exchange words. We both believed that the hours we spent waiting to be rescued from the basement might be the last we'd ever spend together.

Although there weren't any casualties directly caused by the tornados, the damage done in town was significant enough to serve as an effective distraction to the Weeping Willow police force who found us almost eight hours after the tornados touched down. By that point, the sun had set. Mr. Simmons' dead body had already begun jerking as rigor mortis set in, which caused all of us to flinch in horror every single time we heard noise coming from the room where we'd left him.

However, the cops and fire department who found me, Trey, Violet, Father Fahey, Henry and Laura in the basement of St. Monica's rectory were so exhausted and stressed-out by that evening that they considered finding us alive to be some kind of miracle. "Well, look what we have here," Officer Marshall said upon seeing me and Trey in the shadows. "We've been looking all over for you two. I'm sure you're aware that you're both in a bit of trouble." He turned his attention toward Mischa. "And you, young lady. I'm not at all surprised to see you here, considering your habit of going missing."

Mischa, for once, held her tongue. She didn't know it yet, but her mother had called the police when Amanda had reported her missing from afternoon gymnastics practice the day before. An international search had already been launched for the Olympic hopeful with news broadcasts expressing concern that the young woman, whose peers claimed had been acting strangely, might have been a danger to herself. It didn't reflect well on Mischa that police from all over Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota had searched all over tarnation for her during the winter when we'd entrusted Bachitar Preet to hide her from evil.

"Actually, Jeff," Father Fahey interjected. He placed a hand on Officer Marshall's shoulder. "I'm fully responsible for this. The boy was being abused at his boarding school and came to me for help when he was able to break free. I've been sheltering him here for the last few days while trying to figure out the best way to deal with the situation."

If it were anyone other than a priest admitting to harboring a runaway with a criminal past under any circumstances other than the aftermath of a natural disaster, I'm sure that things would have gone down differently. But because Father Fahey was a priest and a tornado had just devastated our town, Officer Marshall frowned at me and Trey for a long moment before saying, "We're going to call your parents and deal with this tomorrow."